XX 



Extra-mural School, No. 1, Surgeon's Square, at the age of thirty- 

 two, where he continued to give systematic lectures on Anatomy. 

 At 11 a.m a lecture-room demonstration was given, and he taught 

 in the dissecting room at one o'clock, assisted by demonstrators, the 

 chief of whom was Dr. Gunning, who had accompanied him from 

 Aberdeen, and who has since given to the University of Edinburgh 

 a fund for prizes in memory of the teachers of his day. 



Professor John Struthers, of Aberdeen, bears the following testi- 

 mony to the valued teachings of Allen Thomson : — 



"Allen Thomson's lectures on Anatomy were of a high order 

 scientifically, and also in style contrasted favourably with the teaching 

 in the other schools. His favourite subject was embryology. That 

 •could not come in much in the ordinary course, but in the summer of 

 1842 he delivered a special course of lectures on Development, in 

 which he gave the results of his own researches, as well as those of the 

 "German observers. These lectures were illustrated by a very large 

 number of beautiful diagrams, and were attended by many members 

 of the medical profession of Edinburgh. His graduation thesis had 

 been on the development of the heart and great blood-vessels in the- 

 vertebrata, showing an early direction of his mind to the subject of 

 embryology. In that summer session he gave also a course of weekly 

 lectures on the new Microscopic Anatomy, which followed the publi- 

 cation of the great work of Schwann. In these lectures we heard much 

 of Schwann, Henle, and Kolliker, the latter of whom became his inti- 

 mate and life-long friend. To this time the microscope had not been 

 much used in the school. The cell doctrine of Schwann had cleared 

 up the confnsion of the old general anatomy, although the revolution 

 it was to effect in biology, in relation to the evolution as well as to the 

 -structure of organic forms, was hardly foreseen. Knox, whose forte 

 was Comparative Anatomy and its bearings on human anatomy, was- 

 •satirizing the microscope, as he did most things. Sharpey had been 

 using it in the investigation of ciliary motion. John Goodsir, Con- 

 servator of the large and valuable Anatomical and Pathological 

 .Museum of the College of Surgeons, gave a few original lectures to- 

 the Fellows of 'the Colleges on Cells, and on Germinal Centres ; and 

 Allen Thomson used it in his researches on Development. But then,. 

 • and for years afterwards, the student had nothing of the microscope 

 beyond the privilege of a peep through Allen Thomson's and John 

 •Goodsir's on a Saturday. The work which Allen Thomson did 

 during this year in Edinburgh secured the success of his subsequent 

 career. His abilities as a teacher and observer w r ere fully recognised, 

 by the medical profession of Edinburgh." 



The principal reason of his apparently sudden return to Edinburgh 

 may be explained by the fact that the Chair of Physiology in Edin- 

 burgh University wrap expected to become vacant by the transference- 



